Closing the Door on My Fire Fears

Since the oven has been cured (at least I think it’s been fully cured.) it was time to find out how my oven firing door build was going. I freely admit that I still was a bit twitchy about starting a fire in something I’d built and walking away. Visions of forest fires and singed squirrels continually danced in my head each time I contemplated lighting up. In order to quell my fear, I decided to call the local sheet metal shop about my fire door’s progress.

I had contacted a local sheet metal shop as soon as I had completed the oven’s opening. I took the dimensions of the opening to Mike Z–their “stainless steel guy” and talked with at length about building a fire door for the oven. I had sketched out a few ideas but Mike took on the project with interest...after all, a fire door for a pizza oven has to be more intriguing than doing basic sheet metal work. My primary design “needs” were; 1) the door had to be able to stand alone, 2) the door had to have a set of handles, 3) the door needed to be insulated so the handles would not be “too hot to handle”, and 4) the door could not warp or twist with the heat. He made some cost estimates for me and I gave him the measurements of the oven opening. Mike said it would be a couple weeks before he could fit it into his schedule, but he’d call when it was done or if he had follow-up questions. Well, it seemed like it had been several weeks and I hadn't yet heard from him, so...

I could no longer resist calling and seeing if there was any prediction of completion date. Low and behold, the door had actually just been completed. I was extremely happy with the job he’d done. The door was made of stainless steel and was hollow so it could be filled with perlite. Mike had fitted a cap over the hollow middle section that could be secured with two set screws. The door was a bit heavier (17 lbs) than I had dreamed (and a bit more expensive), but it met all my design needs...and I didn’t have to do anything but write a check for $186.70 and take it home. I had a lot of fun figuring out how the door was going to work for me. I tried putting it up on little pieces of brick to promote low air flow into the chamber, but came to realize that the physics of the opening and the firing chamber was pretty much working well without my help.